Teodomiro Melendres of Peru, left, Carlos Reynoso of Guatemala and Jose Rojas of Peru look over digital pictures they took Wednesday of downtown Plains.

That's the choice that members of coffee grower cooperatives want Americans to make. It's the difference, they say, in whether coffee growers continue to struggle financially until they're forced to abandon their farms, or they and their families gain some quality of life.

Nine co-op representatives from four countries explained their battle to win a fair price for their small coffee crops to former President Jimmy Carter in Atlanta on Wednesday at The Carter Center before stopping in Plains for an afternoon tour.

Accompanying them were Bill Harris, founding president of Cooperative Coffees and Cafe Campesino, a Fair Trade roaster in Americus, and Monika Firl, Cooperative Coffee's producer relations manager. Cooperative Coffee is a group of 17 Fair Trade coffee roasters who have united to form relationships with nine coffee cooperatives in seven producer countries.

The four countries represented Wednesday were Nicaragua, Tanzania, Peru and Guatemala.

Harris said the meeting with Carter followed the annual Specialty Coffee Association of America convention in Atlanta. Harris called the meeting "extraordinary."

He and representatives gave a demonstration on how the Fair Trade model works. The goal is to get the consumer to be aware of their purchases and ask for Fair Trade coffees, he explained.

Otherwise, coffee growers must often accept far below market prices offered by conventional companies for their product: organic green coffee. And most are small farmers, who grow mostly food and small coffee crops on between one-half- to five-acre mountain farms, said.

It's a new system of trade," Harris said. "You know whose hands and sweat went into that product."

Following the meeting with Carter, Jeronimo Bollen of Manos Campesinas, Guatemala, said, "You have to see it on a long term. (Carter) can't change the world. The situation for coffee growers is quite bad."

Bollen said coffee growers are entering their fifth year since coffee prices fell below the cost of producing it. Waging an uphill battle, Bollen said Fair Trade coffee has also had the stigma of being poor quality for the past 20 years.

"That's not true," he said.

Carter said in a telephone interview that "It was very exciting to see these producers in developing nations working very closely with these individuals who are eager to help them continue to be able to produce some of the highest quality coffee in the world."

At the Specialty Coffee Association conference, Raymond Kimaro, a small producer from Tanzania, who was also on the tour, won the best grade competition.

Bollen said that joining a co-op has enabled growers to put more emphasis on quality control, as well as encouraged them to stay with their farms. In addition, growers can afford to send their children to school.

"That, in the end, is much better," he said.

Malulu Igobeko, a Tanzanian representative, helps export coffee for 80,000 farmers. Fair Trade "is offering us the best price ever," he said in broken English.

Of Carter, he said, "We expect that in the near future he will help us to penetrate the U.S. market. There must be an awareness to Americans of Fair Trade products."

Carter said of Harris and the business cooperative leaders who invited the group to visit here, "These are business leaders in the United States who are not only interested in having financial gain for themselves, but are eager to see someone, these farmers, get a fair price for their product." The cooperative's efforts to maintain quality from planting to roasting to the consumer is to be admired, he said.

"It was so touching to see the level of genuine interest" that Carter demonstrated Wednesday, Firl said.

Harris said Carter "offered to help strengthen their co-ops where needed."

Carter said that throughout their global travels, especially with The Carter Center, he and his wife, Rosalynn, have visited many of these countries and seen firsthand the coffee growers on their farms. He said they are both coffee drinkers.